Am furious with NUS Women's Campaign

It's a social norm, and a perfectly ordinary response to political speeches etc. I can't believe that anyone is defending this daft suggestion.

Blimey. Can you give examples?

YY, BoF.

I would be interested to know whether the NUS actually got a complaint from autistic students, or from someone claiming to speak for them. That might sound very cynical.

If there are people there who would not be able to stay in the room if people applaud, what's the problem with asking people not to? Sounds like a perfectly reasonable adjustment to me. Is applauding a basic human right?

I'm a mature student at a uni and I can assure you that pretty much everything is triggering to someone.

It's exhausting. We have banned certain food/music/newspapers/activities/words/events.

I can understand that some students with sensory processing issues might find a room of people clapping overwhelming, but as per the Disability Act, the response to this should be "reasonable adjustment", ie the provision of ear defenders, or an opportunity to participate in political meetings via weblink etc. It is ridiculously overboard and restrictive to ban applause.

Where is the common sense?

It sounds like satire doesn't it. A gift to tabloid headline writers.

Am I being thick and not getting this at all or are you saying that people are now complaining about clapping and seriously suggesting jazz-hands as a suitable replacement?

If nothing else it would make all these political debates more amusing :o

Is it possible that it's a satirical joke?

I think they have widened the meaning 'triggering' (which properly refers to PTSD) to the point where it's useless. I've seen several people explain that some autistic people don't do well with the noise of clapping. That's true, I know, but it isn't what being triggered is (and, obviously, it gets you into a hierarchy-of-need situation where you might be avoiding problems for some autistic students, but you're going to cause problems for others, and also for people with sight problems).

What really bothers me here is that they've moved from using 'trigger' in a context where the focus is on helping a vulnerable person to be included as much as possible, to using it as a means to exclude people and police behaviour.

And I don't understand why people shouldn't be allowed to cross dress.

Clapping is triggering? Wtf? To whom?

I don't understand why clapping is more triggering than jazz hands.

I'm worried too. I've just seen a suggestion that cross-dressing should be banned unless you identify as trans. Now, while I do think cross-dressing can be an unpleasant, misogynistic display and I'm uncomfortable with that aspect of it, I can't understand this. Does it mean if you're a butch lesbian, you're meant to start wearing skirts? Does it mean if you're a 19 year old lad who is thinking, hmm, maybe I am trans, you can't explore that without outing yourself? It just seems absurd.

I feel bad commenting on twitter, because they are students and they should have time and space to, basically, be a bit daft and maybe get things wrong. But I am really worried by the general direction of a lot of this.

The safe space thing is very strange. Where is the outrage that women are triggered in the first place? Or the plans to do something to change that?

This is (as ever) good on the subject: elegantgatheringofwhitesnows.com/

agreed